CHURCH.

Kirtling church stands next to the
site of the medieval castle, and the advowson of
the rectory belonged to the lords of the manor
throughout the Middle Ages. (fn. 1) In 1251 a rector
was presented by the king as guardian of Roger
de Tony (V) rather than by the queen, who had
custody of his lands. (fn. 2) The bishop of Norwich
presented by lapse in 1457. At the division of
Anne Neville's lands in 1474, the advowson was
evidently assigned to her younger daughter
Anne and her husband Richard Plantagenet,
duke of Gloucester, who presented in 1478.
William Stankym presented for a turn in 1486.
The Crown retained the advowson when it sold
the manor in 1514, and presented in 1521. John
Everton and others presented for a turn in
1532. (fn. 3)

The advowson was reunited with the manor
in the hands of Edward North by 1537, when
he exchanged it for the manor of Freckenham
(Suff.) with the bishop of Rochester, who was
given permission to appropriate the church on
the death or resignation of the rector. (fn. 4) The
bishop appropriated it probably in 1537, and in
1538 leased the advowson of the vicarage with
the rectorial glebe to North, stipulating that he
was to pay a vicar £10 a year and keep the
chancel in repair. (fn. 5) Successive renewals of the
lease from later bishops to members of the
North family kept the advowson in the same
hands as the Kirtling estate until the 20th
century. (fn. 6)

Edward North presented a vicar in 1538, (fn. 7) but
his successors instead served the parish church
through their domestic chaplains. The failure to
present to the vicarage meant that the presentation lapsed to the Crown, but in practice there
was no need for a vicar and no one wanted the
living while large arrears of the clerical tenth
were due. (fn. 8) The supply of domestic chaplains
from Kirtling Hall dried up in 1691, and in 1695
and 1731 the Crown exercised its right and presented a vicar to the living. (fn. 9)

The non-resident lords of the manor exercised
their patronage from 1751 and continued to present vicars (fn. 10) until W.H.J. North, 11th Lord
North and a Roman Catholic, became patron in
1884. (fn. 11) The right to present fell in law to the
university of Cambridge, (fn. 12) though by 1909 Lord
North had arranged for J.H.D. Ryder, 5th earl
of Harrowby, to present, (fn. 13) which he did in 1927.
The university presented in 1938 (fn. 14) and continued to exercise the patronage after 1941 in
lieu of Mrs. D. A. Bowlby, sister of the last Lord
North. Under pastoral schemes of 1969, 1975,
and 1984, the living was held in plurality with
Cheveley 1969-75, with Woodditton and Saxon
Street 1975-84, and with both of them and
Ashley with Silverley 1984-7. In 1987 the four
benefices were united. (fn. 15)

The medieval rectory was moderately valuable, assessed at £14 13s. 4d. in 1254, £20 in
1291, and £24 2s. 10½d. in 1535, around the
middle of the range for parishes in Fordham
deanery. (fn. 16) In 1538 the vicar's stipend was set at
£10 a year, payable from the rectory manor, (fn. 17)
but the supplement of £3 6s. 8d. ordered in the
will of Edward, Lord North, proved 1565, (fn. 18)
seems to have been ineffective.

The domestic chaplains who served the cure
in place of a vicar in the later 16th and earlier
17th century were paid directly by the Norths;
the chaplain in 1603 had c. £30 a year from various sources. (fn. 19) Parliament augmented the living
with £15 a year in 1645 and an additional £2 in
1648, (fn. 20) thus transferring to the minister serving
the church the rent for the rectory manor which
the Norths had been paying to the bishop of
Rochester before the Civil War. (fn. 21) In the early
1650s the Norths rounded up to £50 the various
payments due to the incumbent, namely c. £20
in small tithes, £10 due under the original lease
from the bishop, and £17 ordered by parliament. (fn. 22) From 1660 the vicarial income was
reduced to the £10 due under the lease of the
rectory estate, and moduses of less than £20 for
the small tithes. (fn. 23) That was a very low income
and in practice the cure could not be served
independently. (fn. 24)

At inclosure in 1815 the vicar was allotted 173
a., (fn. 25) which produced an improved but still low
annual income between £70 and £100. (fn. 26) The
living was augmented with £1,200 (half from
Queen Anne's Bounty, half from the marquess
of Bute as patron) in 1832, and another £800 (a
quarter from Queen Anne's Bounty, the rest
from the marquess) to build a vicarage house in
1842, (fn. 27) thus raising the income to £144 in 1851. (fn. 28)
The glebe was sold in 1920. (fn. 29)

The medieval rectory house became the farmhouse of Parsonage farm. (fn. 30) There was no vicarage house (fn. 31) until one was built in red brick
with limestone dressings and Tudor detailing in
1843 on land given by the marquess of Bute.
Designed by the architect Benjamin Ferrey and
extended in 1856-7, (fn. 32) it was sold into private
ownership c. 1975. (fn. 33)

A free chapel or chantry belonging to the lord
of the manor was valued at £2 in 1291; (fn. 34) its
chaplain had a stipend of £1 in the 1390s; (fn. 35) and
it was last recorded in 1489, when a new warden
was appointed. (fn. 36)

Rectors appointed by the earls of Warwick
included men who held other livings in their
gift, and there were at least three exchanges of
Kirtling for benefices within the earls' sphere of
influence in Warwickshire and Worcestershire. (fn. 37)
Their appointees also included well connected
university-educated men. (fn. 38) The nominees of the
Crown included pluralists and a bishop 'in foreign parts'. (fn. 39) At times the church was served by
deputies: the rector in 1261 had a vicar (fn. 40) and
there was a parochial chaplain in or shortly
before 1379 and under the episcopal rector in
1499. (fn. 41) Guilds of All Saints and St. Mary existed
in 1461. (fn. 42)

Among the household chaplains of the Norths
who served the cure in the later 16th and earlier
17th century was Ezekiel Catchpole, who was
also tutor at Kirtling Hall and rector of Ashley
with Silverley 1639-82. (fn. 43) Most, including
Catchpole, served for only short periods. (fn. 44)
Under the vicar appointed by the Crown in
1695, services were actually held by curates. (fn. 45)
The curate serving the church in the 1720s was
appointed vicar of Kirtling and rector of Ashley
with Silverley in 1731, (fn. 46) and from then until
1831 the two livings were held in plurality. (fn. 47)
Incumbents in the 1810s and 1820s employed
curates at Kirtling. (fn. 48)

During the plurality with Ashley there was
only a single service each Sunday, but from 1832
a second service was added (fn. 49) and in 1851 the
curate reckoned to attract on average 40 adults
in the morning and 200 in the afternoon, (fn. 50) the
latter figure perhaps half the adult population. (fn. 51)
By 1897 the vicar thought that only a third of
the population were Church of England and
most of rest dissenters and Roman Catholics. (fn. 52)
An enthusiastic vicar appointed in 1904, R. E.
Colebrook, held four services each Sunday but
was forced to resign the living in 1906 after a
bitter dispute with Lord North over control of
the Norths' burial chapel. (fn. 53)

The church, dedicated to ALL SAINTS by
1441, (fn. 54) consists of chancel with south chapel,
aisled and clerestoried nave with transeptal
north chapel and north and south porches, and
west tower. The medieval work is of flint rubble
with limestone and clunch dressings; the 16th-century south chapel is of red brick, and brick
was also used for extensive repairs to the chancel
in the later 19th century.

The church was once cruciform, with a low
central tower over the crossing and a long aisleless nave. The foundations of the crossing survive below ground level. (fn. 55) The proportions of
the building have been thought characteristic of
an Anglo-Saxon church of high status, perhaps
a minster, (fn. 56) but churches were still being built
in that form after 1066, and no features remain
which are unambiguously pre-Conquest. Apart
from what can be deduced of the original plan,
the oldest surviving feature above ground is a
small round-headed window at the west end of
the south nave wall, the only part of the nave
walls not altered in later centuries. The window
head is carved from a single large block of stone,
scooped out underneath to form an arch, and
very simply decorated on the external face with
concentric round arches. It dates from the later
11th century and may be pre-Conquest, but the
window opening is straight, not splayed as many
late Anglo-Saxon windows were. (fn. 57)

In the later 12th century a new south doorway
was made in the bay east of the surviving early
window. (fn. 58) It has Christ in Majesty in a circular
panel in the tympanum, under an arch decorated
with chevron mouldings. The tympanum is supported on bearded corbel heads, as at Great
Bradley (Suff.), which also had the Tony family
as patrons. (fn. 59) Part of the 12th-century ironwork
of the door also survives.

In the 13th century, probably to a single
building plan, the chancel was rebuilt, the north
transept was extended north (leaving some of
the quoins from its original north wall visible
on the outside), and a north aisle was added to
the nave. Blocked single lancet windows from
that period survive in the west wall of the aisle
and the north wall of the chancel, as does the
double lancet east window of the enlarged transept. A little later, but perhaps still in the 13th
century, a west tower was begun. It never had
an archway into the nave (only a door set slightly
off-centre in the wall), or a west door. The completion of its lower stages, to a height just above
what was then a steeply pitched nave roof, probably coincided with the refenestration of the
north aisle with three two-light windows. A
south porch was added in the 14th or the early
15th century; the plinth on either side of its
external doorway incorporates the only knapped
flintwork in the building.

In the 15th century a large new north window
of three lights was inserted in the north transept.
The transept already served as a chapel, its east
window flanked by statue niches of different
design. More extensive work was completed in
stages in the later 15th century and probably
continuing after 1500. The north arcade was
rebuilt, the chancel arch was altered, the tower
was completed, and, probably finally, a clerestory of six bays was added. The addition of the
clerestory entailed the removal of any surviving
part of the central tower.

The chapel south of the chancel was built as a
mausoleum for the North family. It dates perhaps
from after 1553, when Edward North's stepson
Edward Myrfin was buried not in the chapel but
in the chancel, where he was commemorated by
a brass. (fn. 60) The work may have been completed in
1567, the date on one of the shields in the roof.
The chapel is almost entirely of red brick, apart
from freestone quoins on the buttresses and the
one unbuttressed corner. Finely moulded brickwork was used for the windows. That to the east
is of five lights, with small rectangular openings
glazed with leaded diamond-shaped panes, set in
tall blank panels under flattened arches and a
moulded drip course. The south wall has two
three-light windows with taller glazed sections
over blank panels. Inside, the mausoleum opened
into the chancel through an arcade of two bays
but on the west had only a door into the south
transept. Edward North (d. 1564) was buried (or
reburied) in the chapel under a black marble
tomb chest and wall plate set against the east wall.
He was joined later by his son Roger, Lord North
(d. 1600), with a tomb chest and recumbent effigy
under an elaborately detailed six-poster canopy. (fn. 61)
Family burials in the 17th century, in the vault
under the chapel, were commemorated by plain
inscribed slabs in the chapel or the chancel. (fn. 62)

Contemporary with the mausoleum, work was
done on the north wall of the chancel, probably
in part to strengthen it, since the upper part was
rebuilt and a large buttress was added in the
middle of the external wall, both in red brick.
The lancet window east of the buttress was
blocked up, and the fenestration west of it
was replaced with a three-light window with
Renaissance detailing, dated 1564 on the inside.

Probably c. 1600 a south aisle was added,
extending from the mausoleum to the porch,
evidently to house pews for the North family,
whose arms were displayed facing into the nave
over an arcade of three round-headed arches
which were given simple mouldings similar to
those of the arcade into the mausoleum. The
work entailed truncating the south transept to
the width of the new aisle, into which it was
incorporated, but retaining its existing arch into
the former crossing. The position of its former
outer wall is visible against the side of the
mausoleum. The aisle has four three-light windows arranged in pairs on either side of a low
doorway. A second, more elaborate doorway at
the east end, next to the mausoleum wall, may
signal separate entrances to the aisle for family
members and servants.

Figures of angels were removed in 1644, presumably from the roof. (fn. 63) In the later 18th century Francis North, earl of Guilford, paid for
repairs throughout the church, replacing the
south aisle windows, cleaning the North monuments, and repairing the thatched roof of the
chancel. (fn. 64) The deaths of members of the
Wroxton branch of the Norths between 1766
and 1841 are marked by eight hatchments. (fn. 65)
The aisle roofs were repaired in the 1820s, (fn. 66) but
the first major restoration was necessitated by
the collapse of the chancel east wall in 1862. The
repairs, which had been completed by 1868, (fn. 67)
involved rebuilding the entire chancel east wall
in red brick, to match the adjoining mausoleum.
It was given a large five-light window with
Perpendicular tracery. Medieval and 16thcentury pews, a mutilated rood screen, and other
fittings were destroyed during the works. (fn. 68) A
north porch, of brick with a tiled roof, was added
perhaps at the same time. A further restoration
took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (fn. 69)

The parish registers begin in 1585 and the
bishop's transcripts in 1570. (fn. 70)